Sand Tobogganing!

What a day!

Parked up at a wharf on the outskirts of Brizzie and caught the Tangalooma Flyer to Moreton Island...Along with the rest of the local population it seemed. We chose three seats together on the ferry, right in front of what must be the chavviest family in Oz who had the most irritating and badly-behaved children, who were fed crisps, biscuits, pop and lollies on the 75-minute crossing; and they wondered why the toddler was sick before we docked. Anyway, because of that, it was a fairly slow crossing but we arrived in time for our midday quad biking session through the sand-dunes. We filtered into groups of two or three but the guide spotted my desire to go faster and directed me to tag onto the end of another group who were kicking up a lot more sand! It was so good that I signed up for another session later in the afternoon at a discounted rate and got taken off the beaten track with the guide for some steep dune biking! It was, to coin a Gavin and Stacey phrase, (absolutely) cracking.

After a cold drink and sandwich stop it was time for our desert safari, which was basically a short ride on a bus with very bouncy tyres, through sand tracks, to the desert that forms Tangalooma National Park. Parked up, slapped on some sunscreen (error), grabbed a MDF board, covered the shiny side with candle wax and and climbed a mahooooosive dune, the size of Everest, which, because of its sandy-ness was like wading through treacle. As the summit was reached, I donned a pair of swimming goggles to protect the contact lenses and went, head first, on my tummy down the very near vertical (ok, slight exaggeration but steep!) drop. Lots of fun, except I should not have had my mouth wide open and/or screemed as I went down, because I ended up with a mouthful of sand when I reached the bottom. There was sand everywhere and because of the recent sunscreen application, it turned into a mini exfoliation session as I tried to wipe it all away. Lesson learned!

A quick dip in the sea as the sun set was just what was needed, before it was time for the night-time dolphin feeding session at the jetty area. A daily ritual on the island - co-ordinated and managed by the resort, provides a tenth of the visiting pod of dolphins' daily requirement of food, to ensure that they continue to hunt for food as normal. In turn, we waded out in the sea, up to our middles to hand feed the wild mammals a couple of fish each. Jen wouldn't hold her fish; she couldn't even pick it up out of the bucket, so I had to do it for her. I've discovered that she gets a bit special, bless her, when it comes to things like cutting up chicken, feeding kangaroos, holding dead fish and the like, (and my parents think I'm squeamish) so it took all her strength and courage to take the little tiddler from me to feed the dolphin, momentarily forgetting about her fear of being in the sea bare foot. This is the girl who would love to go scuba diving but hates the sea and doesn't like swimming!

The catamaran brought us back to the mainland at a faster rate of knots than what we went out at and after a quick comfort stop on the way home for a burger from the Golden Arches, we were home and showered and ready for bed by 10.30. A brilliant day out with lots of laughs and hysterics.